Posted on Thursday, August 6, 2015

‘Born Again Virgin’ Recap: Did You Watch Last Night?

Hello World,

I have a confession. Although “Sex and the City” went off of the air more than 10 years ago at this point, I still watch at least one rerun a week. I’ve been on the SATC tour in NYC, and I even have the SATC board game. I truly feel like I know Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda & Samantha, and the girlfriends are really a part of my life even now.

That’s why when I heard about a new show featuring 30-something girlfriends (Not “Girlfriends”…another confession…I only discovered that wonderful show after it went off of the air, but that is another post for another day.) looking for love, and one of those women is choosing to do it (or not do it actually) while celibate, I knew I had to least watch once. “Born Again Virgin” is not a Christian show. Let me get that out of the way. Jenna, the central character of the sitcom, is a born again virgin meaning she is taking sex off the table so that it won’t cloud her decision in making the right choice of a mate. She decided to become celibate after realizing that her “body count”has surpassed her age. Ouch. Although “Born Again Virgin” is not a Christian show, however, I still think it has the potential to introduce many women to the best way of making a choice in a mate. And many of these women may not have considered this style of dating before…

The pilot episode of “Born Again Virgin” originally aired in February, and the feedback to the innovative show was so positive that the show is now back for a full season. The new season debuted last night with two, 30-minute episodes…

Episode 1: “No New Friends”

In the first scene, we see Jenna (Danielle Nicolet) dreaming about having sex…While Jenna is not doing it in real life, she can at least dream about it! So Jenna gets mad when she is awakened and thereby deprived of the only sexual experience she can have since she declared herself celibate four months ago…

Once she completely wakes up, she realizes that long-term celibacy is going to be hard, and she decides to join a Modern Day Virgins celibacy support group to the ridicule of her roommate Kelly (Meagan Holder), a hard-driving pr exec and her other roommate Tara (Eva Marcille), who is an over-the-top actress. During the first meeting, it becomes clear to her that the group is not made up of born again virgins. The group is for actual virgins. But she keeps her secret opting to stay in the group for the support she thinks it will give her particularly as she is constantly being tempted by one of her neighbors fine-as-wine Donovan (Durrell “Tank” Babbs). In fact, Jenna was dreaming about Donovan in the beginning of the show. How many of you know that when you are trying to walk on a higher path, the devil will set up a roadblock! At the end of the meeting, the group leader encourages the virgins to either call Jesus or her if they get weak in between meetings. Amen!

Jenna decides to host the next meeting of the Modern Day Virgins at her home, but her friends, who are curious about the group, crash the meeting. A random remark from Tara, who has no-filter (Think Samantha on SATC), reveals that Jenna is not an actual virgin. The group leader goes crazy and yells, “She’s been deflowered” while making the rest of the virgins evacuate her home like a bomb went off. But one virgin stays behind. She is intrigued that Jenna has actually been where she wants to go and asks for her help, saying that she is going to have sex with or without her help. Jenna makes up the plain Jane virgin with “hair and makeup,” and she is ready to go get her blessing so to speak. And before she even leaves the building, she encounters Donovan who is willing and able to bless her. The next day, her hair askew and her makeup smudged, she bumps into Jenna as she getting on the elevator to leave the building as she never left in the first place! She recounts her experience to Jenna who realizes that her temptation has deflowered her new friend. She is not pleased and decides she needs “no new friends.”

Episode 2: Go Hard or Go Home

Another reason why I like the show is that Jenna is a writer and has committed herself to blogging about her no sex in the city experience (I think the setting is Atlanta). (Sound familiar? Think me two years ago.) Although her blog seems to be successful as it is, she decides to take it up a notch by adding vlogging to her site. During her first video which she makes in a luxurious bedroom (sidebar: Why does every writer on TV seem to be doing better financially than most of the writers I know in real life?), she gets up from her laptop to show her audience something and realizes that she is wearing granny panties! Why wear sexy panties if no one is going to see them? Jenna’s vlogging, however, does attract new visitors to her site, particularly one 15-year-old girl who wants to stop having sex with her boyfriend but worries he will leave her if she does. Jenna is able to give some good advice to the teenager based on her own experiences.

Meanwhile, Kelly is working hard to get a new client, an NBA basketball player who is interviewing pr companies to market and promote his new video game. Kelly, who is very competitive, beats the basketball player at his own video game so to speak but simultaneously loses the account. The male ego is very delicate. But she won the account back by pretending she cannot play actual basketball very well, and his male ego is restored.

Tara, on the other hand, is trying to get the attention of Lisa Wu, yes Lisa Wu from “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and now “Hollywood Divas” as she is trying to position herself as a reality star. When Tara and her roommates meet for dinner one night, Tara, who is secretly video recording the dinner, manufactures a crazy fight with her girlfriends and knocks all of their food of the table in “anger.” She shows the video to Lisa expecting to impress her with her antics but instead the reality show star encourages her to not sink that low! The irony is that Lisa was taping their conversation for her reality show…

So that is my quick and dirty recap of the first two episodes of “Born Again Virgin.” The show airs on TV One on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. CST.

FYI: I didn’t take the best notes this time around because I wasn’t sure that I would like it, but I will be back next week with a thorough recap!

Will you be watching?

Any thoughts?

Posted on Sunday, August 2, 2015

Hashtags, Confederate flags and Lions, Oh My…

Hello World,

I’m a hashtag away from jumping, head first, from a bridge…Okay, I’m so I’m being a wee bit dramatic…But I am a hashtag away from falling sideways from my desk chair onto the carpet below so that I won’t be able to see any new hashtags sure to pop up on my social media accounts on my laptop computer…

I’m still stuck on #PrayforCharleston and since then, the hashtag activism world has moved on to #SandraBland, #SayHerName and as of this week #SamDubose. Let me be clear, in my President Obama voice (Chile, what’s going to happen to us when he’s longer in the White House?), this post is NOT about trivializing any of these horrific incidents, diminishing the unfathomable grief these families must be experiencing right now nor downplaying the inspiring activism that has been organized to address these and similar incidents…This post is simply about my #fatigue and skepticism about various commentaries relating to these and similar incidents…

And I feel like an Internet traitor for feeling this way…Whenever a new horrific incident has transpired, we cannot wait not one beat before countless eloquently written diatribes are disseminated with the quickness…Just some knee-click responses if you ask me…It happens so predictably that I have to wonder if this #Internetoutrage is really true…And I have to wonder if I saw these people in real time, would they be ranting and raving like the way they do on the Internet…Sometimes, things that transpire are so terrible, so egregious, so tragic, there are no words that should be said and or written (outside of the basic news) for a while…

From what I’ve gathered from reading various blog posts, Facebook posts and tweets, it seems the popular sentiment is that black people should be walking around or driving around in fear of being stopped by the police or having any contact with the police altogether…It’s like an NWA song come to life…Truth be told, I tend to not care for the police, but my feelings about the police go back a long time way, way, way before a hashtag was created, when a hashtag was just a number sign even…Why, you ask? Well, #1, I don’t care for anyone telling me what to do (a character flaw), and #2, sometimes, I get the feeling that police officers and criminals are opposing sides of the same coin…However, that being aside, I refuse to live in fear of the police….My God, yes there are some racist, vile police officers out there, but I’ve also known some decent ones…

And maybe I’m not down with every aspect of the #movement because of my overall aversion to pain and discomfort and my ability to see good in almost anything…I wonder what I would been like if I had come of age during the Civil Rights Movement…I just can see myself marching with Dr. King and nem and after a while saying, “You know what? My feet hurt, and I’m ready to go back home to my mama’s house. I got rights there.” Or if I lived during slavery, when Harriet Tubman was trying to get folk to get on the Underground Railroad with her, would I have been the one who asked, “Do they have any snacks on the Underground Railroad cause Massa got snacks at the Big House?”

I jest…But seriously I do have #Fatigue…

***

Now on to this whole Confederate flag debate…I feel like this a classic case of “Come get yo crazy cousin.” Erebody has a trifling cousin that just won’t do right…That cousin who asks you for a loan but hasn’t paid you back from the 50-leven he or she has already asked you for money…That cousin who is always bragging about all of the moves they making when the last move he or she made is the move back to your auntie’s (mother of said cousin) house…That cousin who is hopelessly, undeniably, matter-of-factly stuck on stupid…I feel like rational people of all races realize the Confederate flag is about hate not heritage, but some white people refuse to see what everybody knows…I don’t care how you whitewash it… So to rational white people, I say, “Come get yo crazy cousin” because they are not listening to us (black people)…

Speaking of us…Case in point…Seen at a Confederate flag rally in Stone Mountain Park yesterday…An alleged KKK member wearing FUBU tennis shoes…The FUBU acronym means For Us By Us and is the creation of Daymond John, the black millionaire on “The Shark Tank.” If that ain’t a case of “Come get yo crazy cousin,” I don’t know what is…

And if the flag is about heritage not hatred, what’s up with putting Confederate flags outside of Ebenezer Baptist Church? Yes, that Ebenezer, the Ebenezer Baptist Church of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site? Allegedly, the culprits were two white males.…How are black people supposed to take that? “Come, get yo crazy cousin.”

***

Now on to this Cecil the Lion…As someone who loves the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz” and Simba in “The Lion King,” I get the international outrage about dentist Dr. Walter Palmer hunting down and killing Cecil the lion…I guess it seems so inhumane because Cecil was big as a human being, and I just think there is something wrong with killing other human beings…I don’t see people being upset if Palmer would have stomped a million cockroaches to death or used his hands to smash a million mosquitoes although cockroaches and mosquitoes are also living creatures…#alllivesmatter, remember?

That being said, the #blacklivesmatter activists and the animal rights activists need to join forces because the animal rights activists are bout it bout it….they don’t play…they gets thangs done, you hear me?!

Actress Mia Farrow got gangsta with it and tweeted the Palmer’s address! He has had to close his business for fear of folk avenging the death of Cecil the lion! And now senators have created a bill dedicated to the the Cecil the lion according to The Huffington Post…

The Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (CECIL) Animal Trophies Act would extend current U.S. import and export restrictions on animal trophies to include species that have been proposed for listing as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Read the rest of the store here.

Here is one thing that black people can do to gain the sympathy of animal rights activists…

LOL…I jest…truly, I jest…but there may be a kernel of truth here…

Alright, I’m done…

Any thoughts?

Posted on Friday, July 31, 2015

DeVon Franklin & More to Merge Faith & Entertainment at Merge Symposium in Baltimore Tomorrow

Hello World,

If you’re a person of faith AND ever wanted to delve into the entertainment industry AND will happen to be in the Baltimore, Maryland area this weekend, then I’ve got the juice for you.

Birthed from the Merge Summit, which is held every other August in Los Angeles and “features interactive panel discussions, workshops, and keynote presentations in music, television, film, branding, new media, artistry and more,” the Merge Symposium brings the Merge experience to other locales.

Held at the Pastor Jamal Bryant’s Empowerment Temple Church in Baltimore on Saturday, the Merge Symposium includes confirmed master class presenters: The legendary SUZANNE DE PASSE, Film Producer and Author DEVON FRANKLIN, MIKKI TAYLOR from Essence Magazine, Grammy Award-Winning Artist MICHELLE WILLIAMS, TV Film Producer/Manager DR. HOLLY CARTER, Emmy Award-Winning Casting Director ROBI REED, Award-Winning Television Executive TRACI BLACKWELL From the CW Network, Pastor MARK BAKER, Pastor DR. JAMAL BRYANT, Actress LISA RAYE MCCOY, Media Personality ROLAND MARTIN and HARRY LENNIX From “NBC’S The Blacklist.” Plus performances by JONATHAN MCREYNOLDS, DEON KIPPING, Y”ANNA, THOMAS CLAY & EVOLUTION and DANNI!

DeVon Franklin’s “Produced By Faith” master class sounds like it will be particularly interesting. The description is below:

Do you have enough faith to step out into your destiny? Great risk precedes great rewards and author/producer DeVon Franklin knows this firsthand. This past fall, he left his prestigious Senior Vice President position at Columbia Pictures to become a producer and launch his own entertainment company. Even with his recent successes, including the mega hit HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, nothing is guaranteed. Acting on purpose and emboldened by faith, DeVon is making the jump with excitement. Don’t miss this explosive, closing Master Class where he will share some of his secrets, industry insight, career strategies, faith tips and the encouragement you need so you can make the leap of faith for your own life and land on your feet!

Incidentally, Franklin is currently in Atlanta filming “Miracles From Heaven,” starring Jennifer Garner. Franklin is producing the Christian film, which is slated for March 18, 2016, along with Bishop T.D. Jakes and Joe Roth.

To see the full schedule, click on this link, and to register, go to this link. Registration prices range from $10 to $100!

From the website, it looks like the Merge Symposium is coming to Atlanta and Chicago, but the dates have not been announced yet.

Any thoughts?